Wonderful day and fantastic innings from Root. Said he needed a big one here to justify moving up the order and he certainly obliged. I initially wasn't in favour of moving him up for this series but very happy to be proved wrong. Happy with batting all day too. There's so much time left so bat them into the ground and take away any sliver of morale they have left and get 1 or 2 of our batsmen, such as Root, into some form. Give Root a chance to get to 200 in the morning then declare and have 5 and a bit sessions to bowl them out. Fancy us to finish it on day 4.

Englishmen might win the Open, Tour de France and Lord's Ashes test on the same day. We must think we're Australia!

Yes......but I wish they'd been retained because England played well yesterday, rather than because the weather gifted them that last test! Still, they did play brilliantly in the first two! It'll be interesting to see how well they play in the last two!

Yeah not the way I wanted to do it but I'll take it. I grew up following cricket at a time I never thought I'd get to see us win the Ashes in my lifetime. Now I've experienced it 4 times (ok technically not "won" this one yet).

I also don't think it's a given that Australia would have won without the rain anyway. They still had 7 wickets left to take in only 2 sessions and we have had a bit of a specialty in batting out 5th days for draws in recent years.

Cardiff 2009 against Australia stands out when we seemed certain to lose then the last wicket pair of Anderson and Panesar batted out the last 13 overs or something ridiculous. I was in the UK during that series and actually at Wembley Stadium for a concert at the time and remember lining up for food and the guy behind me checking his phone saying "blimey, we're still in." So I asked him what was happening and those 2 were in with a few overs left. Thought they'd surely get out then when I got back to my seat that guy ended up in the row behind me and he shouted out to me that they had got the draw.

There were also a couple in South Africa against Steyn, Morkel and Ntini. And most recently in Auckland in March Root, Bell, Prior and Broad were the main guys who did it, especially the latter 2 (with Panesar required to survive the last couple of overs) and they were still either in or yet to come so I'm fairly confident they would have done it again. There were also Bresnan and Swann who weren't playing in Auckland and they are more than capable of lasting a while.

No......certainly not a 'given' that Australia would have one, but my husband seemed to think England were batting defensively and just trying to stay in, rather than scoring runs, but that didn't make sense to me at all! If they're not scoring runs, then surely they're having to defend more bowls, therefor more chance of being knocked out and that made it pretty boring as well!

Absolute damn disgrace that Kevin Peterson, who had the best test average in this miserable ashes, has got the sack!Whenever he comes onto bat, you feel something special is about to happen. He has so much charisma. Apparently he criticised the useless coach and captain

Think it's a bit ridiculous but it was on the cards. Just seemed to always fall out with everyone around him and cause too many problems behind the scenes. Still, your best players should be accommodated and there are plenty more who should have been dumped before him.

Absolute damn disgrace that Kevin Peterson, who had the best test average in this miserable ashes, has got the sack!Whenever he comes onto bat, you feel something special is about to happen. He has so much charisma. Apparently he criticised the useless coach and captain

Not Ian Bell with best test average?

Anyhow, I agree with Alex, that a few others should have been first in the queue.

I do think some perspective is required though. It was a pathetic series and one of the lowest moments in the history of English cricket and changes need to be made. But we have not suddenly become Zimbabwe or Bangladesh and are going to be everyone's whipping boys for the next 10 years. We have been in top 2 or 3 teams for a number of years now and in the last year have still won a test series AWAY in India and won an Ashes series 3-0.

We were on a record unbeaten run in tests before the latest series. Its not suddenly the mid to late 90s again. Look how Australia immediately bounced back from the mid year Ashes thrashing.